Around #KC yesterday with my parents. Historical sights and museums galore. Truman house and WWI museum pictured with various views atop the Liberty Tower. The Sphinx “Memory” faces east toward the battlefields of France, shielding its eyes from the horrors of war.
Remarkable museum. 32 Countries were involved in the Great War.
#history#war#truman

"Take these. Don't eat all at once. They'll spoil your teeth." Rasool uncle warned me before handing out five packets of candies he'd brought from his country. I had an allergy to candies but accepted the gift, anyway. He didn't have to know about it, did he?
I didn't know anything about him apart from the fact that he had a great taste in gifts. Never worried to ask. Papa met him 2 months back at a general store and invited him. He started coming home for dinner every day after that.
Papa tries to befriend everyone who looks like us in this foreign land. Maybe to fill the void of togetherness in our lives here.
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"He doesn't have a baby, Papa?"
"Yes, he has a daughter of your age, Beta. She lives at home."
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I wondered. I've been to Rasool uncle's home on street 51, just 3 km far from our home, but never found a person besides uncle himself. I wondered what Papa meant by home.
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"The day you finish them, I'll appear. Magically. With tastier ones. I promise." Two days after he'd brought those candies, he left for his home. There was silence at the dinner table. Papa's eyes were glued to the news channel. Ma was staring blank at the door.
The news of terror in Afghanistan was airing on television. 140 people were killed in an interval of two days. Parents watched their children die in front of them. Children lost their childhood in fraction of seconds. How helpless it must feel to lose loved ones and not be able to do anything about it.
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"Will he return, Papa? Where is he now?"
"Did he meet his daughter, Papa?"
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Papa never answered. The next day, when the news of the death of 400 more people aired, I ran to my room, opened the jar of candies and ate them. All of them. At once.
I couldn't care about my allergy. Maybe, I'd be sick or even dead. But at least, it'd bring Rasool uncle back. Magically. As he'd said before departing.
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Photo by - @h_ei_sen_berg_